| In discussing how to combine tools, we have not yet touched on how to bridge the functional gaps between tools. The preceding section mentions an example that combines NList and UImport to resolve an issue with lost group memberships. These two tools may not appear to have much in common that can be used to resolve problems. On the one hand, NList is a utility that is very powerful but clumsy to use because it has a complex command-line interface but has output that is intended to be human readable. On the other hand, UImport is a utility that is designed to take machine-readable input and update attribute values for existing User objects or to create a new object from the data. NOTE The same technique discussed for combining NList and UImport works equally well if you prefer to use ICE instead of NList and UImport because ICE supports the use of .csv files for input. You can find more details in Chapter 12 .
There are a few ways to bridge, or "link" utilities together ”that is, to take the output from one and turn it into a format that the other can use. For instance, you could take the output from one, import it into a spreadsheet, and use some complex formulas to extract the information you need. If the information is limited in scope, you could even use the Notepad utility and its primitive search-and-replace capability to remove excess information. However you choose to manipulate the data, the key in bridging the different utilities is to learn how to manipulate data by using whatever tools you are comfortable with. If you are not a programmer, you can pick up an introductory programming book and learn how to program. Which programming language you use doesn't matter; it's the programming skills that are important. For instance, the "Group Membership Recovery" section in Chapter 11 shows that the combination of programming skills along with network administration is a very strong combination that can make your life a lot easier. | 